U.S. and Chinese Negotiators Closing-In on Trade Deal

(WASHINGTON, DC) In an effort to avoid a looming deadline for increasing trade tariffs, the United States and China launched another round of high-level economic and trade talks Thursday morning at the White House. This is the seventh round of talks and is aimed at resolving outstanding issues regarding the economic and trade relations of the worlds two largest economies. There have been three rounds of talks between the two sides in less than a month since the end of January, as negotiators from both sides try to avoid $200 billion worth of additional tariffs on Chinese imports. During the talks last week, the two sides reached consensus in principle on major issues and had specific discussions about a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on bilateral economic and trade issues. CNBC reports negotiators have drawn up six MOU’s “on structural issues: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade.” Bloomberg reports that China “is proposing to buy an additional $30 billion a year of U.S. agricultural products including soybeans, corn, and wheat. The purchases would be on top of pre-trade war levels and continue for the period covered by the MOU’s.”